Dragonfly Pendant

A commission I finished just the other day.

It was commissioned especially for a ladies 50th birthday.

The pendnat is approx 2 inch long and 2 1/2 inches wide.

Three different coloured leather thongs were supplied for the necklace.

Slow sales in Etsy?

If you wonder why you struggle to make a sale, here is why. This will apply to a lot of categories. I did a rough check for earrings listed on the 28th and there are approx 130 pages with 15 listings per page. Taking that as the average per day , obviously there will be busier days. Please take the following maths as rough approximates. So if you sell earrings and list 2 per day, 14 a week, you make up 0.1% of the total earrings for sale each week. If you list 2 items a day for a month, you might think that your shop with 56 items has a lot of stock. However after 4 months, your 54 items will account for a quarter of one tenth of a percent (0.025%)of all earrings listed. Even if someone does a search for silver, earring, drop, bead, you will still be buried in the sheer number of listings. So to ensure that you have a single listing per page on the earrings, you will need to list one item every 11 minutes, all day long , every day. I have put this post together simply to outline why some people listing 30 items over a 2 day period, might make a sale or two, but then get nothing for weeks and weeks. What are your thoughts?

Magnets !

This is a great tip if you work with a dremmel or a pendant motor.

If you are like me and are forever changing the burrs, drill bits and other accessories then read on.

I purchased some niobium magnets (also called rare earth magnets) 6mm x 3mm. You can see several of them stuck to each other in the front of the photo. They are little round discs, not dissimilar to watch batteries.

On a convenient part of your workbench, simply drill some 6mm diameter holes 3mm deep. Then push into this perfect hole, one of your magnets. These magnets are so powerful, that when you drop one of your drill bits onto them, they stand to attention. You can even see my hand piece spanner on one of the magnets.

So when you are working away, they are easy to pick up, easy to distinguish which one is which and this is just an overall fab idea.

Let me know your workbench tips and I will post any good ideas here.

As promised here is the picture of my DIY file storeage compartment.

I had a small void next to my jewellers bench, so I cut 16 x 9inch lengths of plastic drainage pipes, which fit snuggly into the void.

The pipes are the sort that take your waste water away from under the sink. They are roughly 1 1/2 inch in diameter.

They make perfect compartments for files and sanding sticks. Although I have fit them inside a box on my purpose built bench. You could as easily glue them together and have them sit on top of your bench either horizontally, at an angle or vertically.

I have got another fab tip which I will save tomorrow for anyone who has a pendant motor/ dremmel drill. You will think it is just the bees knees and it is so simple.

Bespoke Platinum Engagement Ring - for Sue

OK. Just finished a platinum engagement ring. The client wanted a traditional princess claw set ring. Here is a step by step process of how it was made.

The first process was making a wax blank that had the maximum dimensions of her ring.






I found the center of the wax at the top and cut a seat for the diamond to sit in.You can see the princess diamond on the top.

You will also be able to see faint lines on the front of the wax. This denotes the shape of the ring.




The lines were used to cut away the wax. The area around the diamond is now being trimmed back and you can start to see the shape of the ring coming through.









Now I have got the overall shape right from the front, I need to refine the shape of ring shank. You can see from this shot, that I have marked out the width of the ring.

These lines will be used to cut back the shank.




The ring shank has been cut back and you can see that I have tapered the setting of the diamond.











The setting is further refined as the client wanted a claw setting.








Light holes are opened up through the shoulders of the ring and through the setting.








The finished model is then moulded using a special rubber compound. This photo shows the liquid rubber up to the half way mark within the mould.

This liquid rubber, sets quite firm. The wax model then has to be cut out, using a sharp knife.



Here is the resulting rubber block. the model of the ring is encased within this block and is released using a very sharp knife.

This is part of the "Lost Wax Casting " process which I will not bore you with.





Here is the finished platinum ring. A perfect copy from the model that I created.

Made especially for Sue.

New pair of earrings.

Just finished these earrings today and loaded them onto Etsy.

In fairness, they have been sat on my bench for several months, just never got around to soldering on the ear posts.

I also created a skull and a bunch of other bones to make a ring, but again this is sat on the bench in bits. When I get some spare time, I will solder them together to make a lovely skull and bone ring.

The Shop - First Pics.

Here some photos of my shop in sunny Kent.

One is taken from the door, looking in and the other from behind my workstation.

I now have a number of "other" goods for sale within the shop covering several different disciplines. Ceramics, cloth bags, leather bags, plushies, felt brooches, wooden gifts, fairy dolls, handmade greeting cards, original artwork, limited edition prints and of course my own jewellery.

I will elaborate on some of the Etsy items I have for sale in another post.

Got to get back to the grindstone.

Back to the blog.........

well , after opening my shop this year March 2007, I have been quite busy with just about everything.

So I have lots and lots to tell you about, and my new commitment is to add a blog entry daily. Some times it will be about the shop and the new items i am stocking. Sometimes it will be about the work of others that I have come across.

So my first bit of news is that I have discovered the wonders of Etsy.

You can visit my Etsy shop www.chrisparry.etsy.com
You can of course visit my regular website www.chris-parry.co.uk
or indeed you can pop into the shop in Gravesend, Kent, UK.